The Next Chapter of My Life - Life at Uni

So for those of you who've been reading my recent blahs, you've probably noticed I've been freaking out a bit over my new life at college or for those of you across the pond, university. About three weeks ago, I packed my bags from my East Coast home and got on a plane with my parents and flew approximately four hours across the country to the beautiful state of Colorado. I had spent well over two years researching universities, the environment of the Mid West and preparing myself for a new life without most of the comforts of my own home. This past February, I made the life changing decision to confirm my acceptance at one of the most prestigious public universities in the country, the University of Colorado at Boulder. My self preparations only started from there. Every day as I was finishing high school, I dreamed of attending school out west, what the classes would be like, massive, what the people would be like, friendly, what the weather would be like, hot and really freaking cold, and how I'd deal with homesickness, yeah, this last one didn't hit me until three days before my parents flew home. Oops.
In May, I got my rooming assignment and lucked out completely. I'm in an apartment off campus, but still on campus, or at least in university owned buildings with three other girls. I spent the past three months getting to know them over the internet and making plans for our apartment.

Let's fast-forward to the present day. Today, I'm in my new home, in an entirely different state with thousands of new people. So far, I've been enjoying it, but I've also been faced with bouts of homesickness and social anxiety of meeting new people. Let's talk about homesickness first.

This is the first time in my life that I've lived without the assistance of my parents. Yeah, they still support me financially, besides, who else could pay for my tuition or my plane tickets home? I did work over the summer, but earned not nearly enough to pay for a semester's worth of classes or transportation. I had prepared myself for the fact that I wouldn't be physically seeing my parents every day so they wouldn't be there to hug me when I get home from classes, kiss me good night or talk to me about my day. Sure, we have Skype and we talk over the phone once a day. But I wasn't expecting the emptiness I've been feeling on the weekends, when, back at home my parents and I would be spending the days together hiking and enjoying eating out. The worst part, and this is going to sound horrible to my parents, but I miss my dog more than I miss them. My dog was one of the most important parts of my life back home. I enjoyed coming home from school and seeing her waiting for me by the door to go out and play. I miss cuddling up to her at the end of a long day, kissing her and hugging her, rubbing her belly and telling her what a good girl she is. I just miss seeing her everyday. Sure, I'll see my dog and my parents again in November when I go home for Thanksgiving. But in the meantime, I need to find new things to do with new people in my new home.

New People. Oh boy. That's the hardest part for me. Yeah, one of my roommates is becoming a good friend, always taking me to dinner with her and her friends and including me in the conversation at the dinner table. But my two other roommates are harder to get along with. One's incredibly homesick and lives an hour away and the other's never around and doesn't talk much. So that leaves me with the people in my classes. I have made one friend from my biology seminar class and we have made plans to go to the weekly movie on Friday night and the Improv group on campus. But she's only going to be here for a semester, so I wouldn't be seeing her in January for the spring semester. That leaves me with one good friend and one long distance friendship, like all of my other friendships back at home. The struggle for me is over coming my always present social anxiety to introduce myself to new people, carry on an interesting conversation and make future plans with them. I am hoping to get myself involved in several volunteering opportunities on campus, Habitat for Humanity, one that I've always wanted to do. I've also joined Hall Council, which is like a high school's student council, except for the dorms. I'm trying to get outside of my comfort zone and experience new things. I'm not a partier, so I wouldn't be going out on the weekends and getting drunk and hooking up with random guys, but I'll be doing hopefully, a much healthier and sober form of partying and meeting new people through watching movies on Friday nights with good people and volunteering with other college students like me. Hopefully I'll be able to overcome my social anxiety and live the college life I've always wanted, with lots of friendly people doing healthy things like hiking the rockies and watching awesome movies and just having fun while working my bum off to get good grades.

Only time will tell if Colorado is the right place for me. It should be based off of what I've thought about for the past two years. I chose Colorado because it was a new place and it had beautiful mountains for hiking and snowshoeing, the people are extremely friendly and the school is superb. I knew I'd end up here eventually in my lifetime, I just hope that right now is the time to do it.